PLEASE
NOTE:The
Merger
Import Blu-ray is now only available from our friends at Umbrella
Entertainment in Australia, can play on all 4K and standard Blu-ray
players and can be ordered from the link below.

The
following releases deal with oppression, how both individuals and
groups deal with it, plus what all that says about the world ewe live
in, then and now...

James
Crump's Antonio
Lopez 1970: Sex, Fashion & Disco
(2018) is a biographic documentary about the fashion illustrator who
helped make the 1970s what they were, became and continue to stand
for. Openly gay, he discovered icons like Jessica Lange, Jerry Hall,
Grace Jones and his style become highly influential. Innovative and
groundbreaking, he brought a fresh new life to the fashion world and
the result is that his work and group of people were the equal of
every other artists (like Warhol and Hockney) as well as actual
fashion designer (karl Laugerfeld, Yves Saint Laurent) in his time.
So how could he be forgotten?

Fortunately,
this great documentary reveals his vitality, love of art, of music,
of people and even himself as he built a discourse that was of
several minority groups, yet became a major force that affected
everyone. Homophobia and racism are two of the reasons he is
forgotten, especially by revisionists still
trying to erase anything
prior to 1980. His work is priceless and his achievements shockingly
ignored except by those in the know. There is plenty of footage here
of him, so we get a great idea of who he was when added to his
friends telling us the many stories.

Even
that does not totally do justice to how good this one is, so catch
this one as soon as you can.

Extras
include Archival Footage (including Silent Super 8 film), Bill
Cunningham Interview excerpts and Marie-Elsa Sgualdo's short film You
Can't Do Everything At Once, But You Can Leave Everything At Once.

Sean
Mathias' Bent
(1997) is based on the stage play about the Nazis when they decided
to turn on their gay flowers, resulting in the Night of the Long
Knives. Despite an entire military outfit of gay men devoted to
Hitler, those in power decided having more power in the long term
meant betrayal and homophobia, so thousands of gay men were murdered,
but this film is about how two of them who were just
part of an openly gay society that had been thriving since the 1920s
are forced to run for their lives and escape for a time.

Two
years later, Rudy (Brian Webber) and Max (Clive Owen) are captured
and sent to the now-established Dachau concentration camp where the
worst possible things happen and more twists and turns result. Based
on a stage play, this film still received and NC-17 rating and does
not shy away from the sex or violence. Ian McKellan, Lothaire
Bluteau and Mick Jagger round out the supporting cast in an honest
film definitely worth a look. It has aged well too.

Extras
include an illustrated
booklet on the film including informative text, Director's statement
and an essay by Steven Alan Carr, while the Blu-ray adds Behind The
Scenes footage, Cast/Crew Interviews and a Music Video for Mick
Jagger's song he performs in the film: ''Streets
Of Berlin''.

Isaac
Julien and Mark Nash's Frantz
Faison: Black Skin White Mask
(1995) has Colin Salmon as the real life anti-colonialist thinker,
dealing with racism, lookism, the third world, homosexuality and a
Marxist view of the world that was groundbreaking in his time.
Sartre was smart enough to recognize what was happening here and the
film wants to explore the man and situation in every subtext
possible, including the collision of words and images and cinema that
intellectuals have been experimenting with since the avant-garde in
early cinema, but in the case of this film, especially since Jean-Luc
Godard arrived on the scene.

As
a result, we get a film that has some intriguing images, but also
more than a few that are too static and fall into the same passive
trap many of Godard's Maoist post-Auteur films fell into in the late
1960s when he stopped being Godard and wanted to let the 'revolution'
happen. Turns out Faison did not live a long life, making him a
martyr for those who agree in his beliefs strongly, at least being a
tragic loss for those who think his discourse deserves more of a
chance or at least parts of it. The acting is not bad here and this
runs a shot 72 minutes, but I would have been happy for this to be
longer if more of it worked and we found out even more about the real
man. Since this is not an outright documentary and is trying to find
something else to show about the man, this is the risk they took. I
give it points for ambition, though.

Extras
include a illustrated booklet on the film including informative text
and essays by the filmmakers.

Peter
Farrelly's Green
Book
(2018) is the tale of a classical recording artist (Mahershala Ali)
who not only performs often in concert, but wants to tour the South
prior to the Civil Rights Movement and have a driver/helper who can
get him through his challenging tour. He settles for a potentially
useful bouncer as his driver (Viggo Mortensen) who is not the most
worldly or together guy, but is a married man with a child and needs
the money. After a rough start, off they go.

The
title refers to a book published for three decades that allowed
African Americans to find places to eat and sleep that would not
reject them and worse all over the country, but the film only uses
that as a jumping-off point to tell what is at least loosely base don
a true story. Of course, it has been widely criticized for being
blind to some realities of life, taking far to much poetic license
with others and having some blatant inaccuracies that are even sloppy
if we give the film a fair margin of error. The problem is that
Farrelly is a director of vulgar comedies and no awards will ever
change that, especially going off the deep end with his brother early
on being as gross asa possible, so YES, the film is going to have
problems and that makes any issues with the comedy even more
problematic. When should we take this seriously, is the comedy
really always funny and why does he suddenly care about anything in
real life that matters after his patchy track record?

Also
making this a little off-kilter is that the family of the driver has
been the agent of getting the film made and goes overboard with the
'friendly' Italian stereotypes, though they may not be as bad as the
likes of Saturday
Night Fever,
they are regressive versus the realism of something like Scorsese's
Mean
Streets,
so the film has all kind of odd live-action cartoon moments. That is
a problem with such serious subject matter at hand. So what does the
film have going for it?

For
one, it is getting people talking and debating, which is hard for any
film to do these days with so many being so safe and so bad, so its
got that going be default. Also, it does not shy away from,
trivialize or degrade Dr. Shirley's sexuality, which is more
authentic than much of the film. It is then odder when we get such
serious moments of racism, hate and potential danger to the leads.
However, that and the solid performances are at the heart of the film
and still make it worth seeing. It is not as good as Spike Lee's
BlackKKKlansman
either, but its reminder of how so short a time ago as the early
1960s that the hate that has resurfaced in the last few years is
gives the film a new relevance.

Yes,
it seems a little condescending like another Best Picture winner,
Driving
Miss Daisy,
but that was about an impossible love and this is not. Instead, it
is about a friendship that managed to happen against the odds and
would have been more likely if not due to racism, classism and other
obstacles. This film will also age weird and even some controversies
(the first 'fried chicken' sequence seems more like an add placement
than a problematic comic moment, but such are the many problems with
the script) are not so simple, but the director must be blamed, which
is why he did not even get a Directing nomination. Will he grow as a
filmmaker? Stay tuned...

Extras
include Digital HD Copy for PC, PC portable and other cyber-capable
devices, while the Blu-ray adds three Making Of featurette promo
clips of about five minutes each.

If
that was not serious enough for some, Mark Grentel's The
Merger
(2018) is
not a comedy trivializing big business or mocking people losing their
livelihood, but an Australian release that balances the serious
matters with a down to earth story that shows how to balance such
elements. Bodgy Creek is small and dying town since its factories
got shut down. Jobs and moral is down, but the only thing keeping
the town together and spirits up is the local rugby team and they are
just about to be shut down due to the fact they are broke and out of
money (and they haven't won a game in years). However, the town's
social worker for refugees Angie (Kate Mulvany) has an idea to save
the town's beloved team, to recruit the town's former hero Troy
(Damian Calliman) to coach for the team and the refugees to play on
the team.

Fortunately
for all of them, Bodgy Creek is a small town that has a large amount
of pride in their rugby team, but unfortunately they seem to be on a
losing streak. Troy is an unpopular choice because he was the one
who lead the protests in which shutdown the town factory (his is now
called the 'Town Killer') and the town doesn't like or even want any
of the refugees in their town, but it is because they are all so
different that brings them together, they are all outcasts of
society. They started out as the town's underdogs, but they soon
become the town's new heroes and the town begins unite and change for
the better.

This
was a your typical sports comedy movie, a group of underdogs working
together to overcome prejudices to become a real team. They started
out as losers and became the champions. It is a true testament to
man's love for sports, that sports is the only real thing that can
bring men of different origins together. Good supporting cast too.
Extras include a Making
of the Merger
featurette and theatrical trailer.

The
2160p HEVC/H.265, HDR (10; Ultra HD Premium)-enhanced 2.35 X 1 Ultra
High Definition image on Green
Book
is an HD shoot that just manages to be the best presentation here,
with authentic-enough color throughout and has some nice shots, but
it can also be a little inconsistent. The 1080p Blu-ray with the
same aspect ratio lacks the color range and some of the finer detail
in better shots, but is passable.

Thus,
the 1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image on The
Merger
falls somewhere in between, not looking like a 4K release, but simply
being a sliver more consistent than any regular Blu-ray here, yet the
1080p 1.78 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Bent
and 1.66 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Frantz
more than hold their own as top rate transfers with hardly any flaws.
They are both shot on 35mm film and well enough that they hold up
well for their age.

The
anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 image on the Lopez
DVD comes from a mix of new video, old film (35mm, 16mm and even
Super 8mm film (including Agfachrome) and various stills and the like
that make for a solid mix that includes some animation. Wish this
were in HD of some form. The lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 and slightly
lesser, lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo are a mix of old often
monophonic audio, new stereo and great hit records.

The
best sound comes from both versions of Green
Book
offering Dolby Atmos 11.1 (Dolby TrueHD 7.1 for older systems)
lossless sound that also has some great hit records and offers more
than its share of dialogue-based moments. The
Merger
is second best with its DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless
mix that is newly recorded and not bad. Bent
and Frantz
are here in PCM 2.0 Stereo,
but Bent
sounds weaker from age and likely from some budget limitations, yet
both play well too with Pro Logic-like decoding.

To
order The
Merger
Umbrella import Blu-ray, go to this link for it and other hard to
find releases: